Proxima Centauri Current Affairs - 2019

Scientists have detected dust belts around Proxima Centauri, a finding that indicates presence of elaborate planetary system hosted by closest star to solar system. These new observations were made by Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) observatory in Chile.

Key Facts

The new observations reveal emission from clouds of cold cosmic dust surrounding star. It revealed glow coming from cold dust in region between one to four times as far from Proxima Centauri as Earth is from Sun. It also reveals presence of even cooler outer dust belt and may indicate presence of system of planets. These structures are similar to much larger belts in solar system and are also expected to be made from particles of rock and ice that failed to form planets.

Proxima Centauri

It is closest star to Sun around 4.25 light years away from the Earth. It is faint red dwarf lying just four light years away in southern constellation of Centaurus. It hosts an Earth-like habitable planet — Proxima Centaur b — orbiting within (Proxima Centauri) its habitable zone which was discovered in 2016.

ALMA Observatory

Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) Observatory is array of radio telescopes being deployed in Chile. It is composed of 66 high precision antennas that allow scientists to unravel important astronomical mysteries, in search of our Cosmic Origins. One of its goals is to image black hole.

It is an international partnership of European Southern Observatory (ESO), US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan, together with NRC (Canada), NSC and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with Chile.

India’s first dedicated space observatory AstroSat along with other space and earth-based observatories have detected a massive coronal explosion on Proxima Centauri, sun’s closest star neighbour.

The explosion was detected as part of joint multi-wavelength simultaneous observational campaign undertaken by three space-based observatories, Astrosat, Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope and the ground-based High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) observatory.

Proxima Centauri

It is group of stars which hosts an Earth-like habitable planet — Proxima Centaur b — orbiting within (Proxima Centauri) its habitable zone. It is a cool dwarf star located around 4.25 light years away from the Earth. It was discovered in 2016.

Key Facts

The massive coronal explosion has sent out powerful solar flare having energy of 10-raised-to-30 ergs, about 100 times a typical solar flare. Such powerful flaring may have produced large radiations and particles which may significantly influence the atmosphere of the Proxima Centauri b and affect its habitability.

The habitability of Proxima Centauri especially its ability to sustain its atmosphere and in particular to sustain water in liquid form may get affected due to abnormal planetary atmosphere heating due absorption of the high-energy photons like the ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray photons released by the coronal explosion.

If such a massive flare occurs in our Sun, it might have a devastating effect on power grids, interrupt broadcasts and electricity, affect electronic instruments, and cause excess UV radiation in space.

Coronal explosion: is an unusually large release of plasma and magnetic field from the solar corona. They often follow solar flares and are normally present during a solar prominence eruption. The plasma is released into the solar wind, and can be observed in coronagraph imagery.